


cry, little sister (thou shalt not fall)

by Storycat9



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e05 The Weaponizer, Gen, Kinda, Missing Scene, Patterns, Siblings, azrael's blade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28225902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storycat9/pseuds/Storycat9
Summary: "That's Azrael's Blade," Lucifer gasps. "How do you have it?"A tight smile quirks the corner of Uriel's mouth."I borrowed it off the Angel of Death while she wasn't looking."Patterns are tricky. It takes time to get a real sense of them.
Relationships: Azrael & Uriel (Lucifer TV)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 36





	cry, little sister (thou shalt not fall)

“Sister, thank you for coming.”

Uri turns from his desk, and I see the brilliant warp and weft of his pattern-map floating in a great cloud above his head. Watching Dad with his patterns is like watching a conductor with an infinite orchestra, but Uri will never be a conductor, just a cartographer, trying so hard to trace Dad’s Words from cause to infinite effect. I admire my little brother’s patience. 

The light of the Silver City shines through the high thin windows of his study and sets individual paths to flicker like the tinsel on Ella's Christmas tree. I grin at him and flick my wings.

“Since when are we so formal, Uri? I know it’s been a while, but … Uri? What is it?”

I reach for him with both hands, palms down, and I startle as I pull him to his feet, because my little brother’s hands tremble ever so slightly in my own. It’s easy to ruffle his feathers, sure, Uri takes everything so seriously, but I have never felt this low thrum of tension--almost dread?--in him before. 

I drop the Earthly guise that barely comes to his shoulder and stand tall, pulling him into my arms and wrapping him up in my dove grey wings like a fledgling. My little brother shudders-- _shudders_ \--and presses his head into the side of my neck. The feeling of dread swells, rolls off of him and through me. Our feathers shiver against each other as they haven’t since we were young and listening to our Parents’ arguments shake the firmament.

“Uriel--”

“Do you ever miss Mother?” he cuts in, nearly whispering under the cover of our wings. 

My eyes widen.

Something is very, very wrong. He wouldn’t ask that. No one asks that, least of all my serious, stalwart sibling. He looks at me, and then lets go of my hands, pulling back until just the tips of our pinions touch. I follow his gaze up to the pattern cloud.

“I’ve found a new set of patterns on Earth, Sister. They’ve been forming for decades, but so wispy I couldn’t untangle them, couldn’t see how they connected. Father and the Eldest set some spark among the humans, more and more of them getting caught up in it as the years passed but I couldn’t see what it meant, just knew our Father was moving again, and as time went on that Mother was ... could … would be moving, too.”

“Mother’s coming back?” I gasp. 

“There’s … there’s a path, yes. A few, actually. At first I couldn’t see them, but I do now.”

I can't stop the joy that breaks over my face. “They’ll reconcile?”

But Uriel shakes his head, and the look on his face is dark and awful. I see in it the shadow of my own power, a thousand times a million. I feel the sudden weight of souls upon souls, nearly all of the humans of Earth and beyond them, seven of every ten of my brothers and sisters, snuffed like candles. I hear their screaming in my head; I hear Mother wailing in grief and remorse over the ruins of her Husband and children. I will be there, of course I will. And Uri too.

When I come back to myself, our positions are reversed; I huddle on the floor, wrapped in my brother’s steely wings, a white-knuckled grip on the bracers over his arms. “Is the path set?” I choke out.

He stands again and pulls the threads of the patterns down to our eye level. I watch his fingers dance among them, tracing out path after branching path. I can see them now, how many of them stop, end in darkness, swirl off into chaos … and still my little brother patiently traces along the twisting maze of them, searching and searching. 

He doesn’t look at me, but he starts to talk again after a little while, his voice calmer, but urgent. “It started stabilizing, getting clearer about seven years ago on Earth. The Lightbringer made a deal with our brother Amenadiel to live there. …” he cuts a glance to me and I duck my head briefly, chagrinned. “You know this, Sister.”

I do. I recognize one of those little threads of life tangling into my favorite older brother’s bright paths; I sent Ella's little Soul on her trajectory, and I’ve not regretted it. “Yes … but little Brother, I’ve seen Lucifer. He’s living in peace there. He’s changing, Uri; he’s done no evil--”

Uriel barks a laugh, flicks at a handful of branching paths. “Oh, I see how he changes, Sister. He changes everything -- every thread he even brushes against in passing suddenly bristles with new paths. All this time, after everything still our Parents’ favorite …”

Uriel shakes his head, laughs a little under his breath as though laughing at himself. Then his dark eyes, so like our older brother’s once upon a time, turn to me. He splays out his fingers and feathers wide at the patterns around him.

“I don’t have it all yet, Azrael, but I have enough to know this much: Our brother, right now, will be either a bomb or a scalpel in our Mother’s hands. I’ve seen him march on the City with Mother and Amenadiel, with a demon and a human child at his side. I’ve seen him blow up the Gates and Father’s Tower both. I’ve seen other paths in which he rejects Mother and returns to Hell without her, while the Goddess blows herself up with the Eldest and half Creation … The paths are so long-laid that I can’t tell what Father really intends; they just won’t come into focus. But they are all--nearly all--the end of everything.” 

“Why would Father want Mother and Lucifer to destroy his Creation and all of us?” I argue. “That makes no sense.”

Uriel’s voice comes out so quiet, so rueful. “With all my power, Azrael, every scrap of knowledge I’ve ever gleaned from study, I have found only one path that doesn’t lead to the destruction of Creation. One. And even that is so thin and fragile I’m not sure it will be clear enough to find and follow once I’m Earth. But I have to try.”

Uriel takes my hands again. 

“In the one path I’ve found, Lucifer might not be the bomb, but the scalpel. Father set his whetstone in place years ago and our brother needs only a blade,” he says. 

“And for that, I must ask for the loan of your Blade, Azrael.”

I pull the mantle of my power around myself, flaring my wings, and look at him, no longer older sister to little brother but Angel of Death to Angel of Sight. “My Blade cannot be used that way anymore, Uriel. The flaming Sword was broken apart long ago. My Blade can only bring destruction in the mortal world.”

“For you and me, yes, Azrael. For the Lightbringer, it will answer to his call again, with fire and blood to power it.”

I stare at him, saying nothing.

Uri gives me a smile so weighted with grief that I see his Grace flicker. I press my own Grace down over him with both hands as though I’d hold him inside himself. I search the twisting webs above him for his own branching paths. I follow them, with far less skill than my brother, but even so I find his path. 

I choke in horror, understanding what he asks. “No.”

“Azrael, this is the only--”

“ _No,_ Uriel. It is my Blade. I will not let you do this.”

“--the only path, Sister. The only one, and I can barely hold the thread of it as it is …”

“Then you can’t _know--_ ”

“What of your human, Sister? Your Ella? She is as dead as the rest of them if everything comes to pass.”

“Death isn’t beyond me, but this is. You are my _brother_. Lu is my _brother_. You can’t know all the paths. You can’t possibly believe this path is the one Father would want. Go to Father, tell him what--”

“By His Grace, Azrael, don’t you think I’ve _tried_? Don’t you think I’ve called to Him, wept, begged for guidance …?” 

Uri shudders again. Tears stream down his face, and he reaches for me again as though he’s drowning. I wrap him up and rock him as I had long, long ago, during the worst of our Parents’ fights. I whisper to him that we will find some other way: that I am with him now; we’ll gather our siblings; we’ll go to Lucifer. …

I feel my brother Uriel still, feel him draw a shaky breath and smile against my cheek. “I love you, Sister, and I’m glad you love me. You have always been the best of us.”

Then I feel a sudden, blinding pain in my head, and darkness covers the world. 

When I wake, my Blade is gone. Uriel is gone. The World has turned. 

I’m left to watch my favorite brother, our Lightbringer, try to thread a single, shaky path through potential ruin.

_Good-bye, little brother._

_Dadspeed, Lu._

**Author's Note:**

> I admit it: Uriel's behavior in Weaponizer always tickled my brain, because nothing makes sense in retrospect. He says "I didn't see that coming," when Lucifer stabs him, but how is that possible? How did he know to tell Lucifer about the piece of the Flaming Sword on Earth unless he saw the possibility of Lucifer winning Azrael's Blade and using it to cut a hole in the world? How could he possibly think it would be allowable to kill the Miracle his Father had gone to all that trouble to get born? And how could he have pick-pocketed the Angel of Death? It seemed like there had to be more to it than that. I firmly believe Uriel walked into the church knowing how it would end, and how his own death would change his brother's decisions. Uriel's death triggers Lucifer's decision to show himself to Linda, helps solidify his commitment to Chloe, and ultimately turns him against the possibility of another celestial war that could harm more of his siblings. So Uriel's death could be the ultimate sacrifice by the only one who can know it's worth making.  
> Or Lucifer's brother is just a dick, take your pick.
> 
> Title comes from Gerard McMahon's "Cry Little Sister," the theme song from the "Lost Boys," for all you '80s-'90s non-sparkly vampire fans.


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